Microsoft is close to finalizing the successor of Office 2007

Feb 3, 2010 07:51 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is extremely close to wrapping up the successor of Office 2007. The Redmond company has confirmed officially that the next iteration of its productivity suite has reached the final stage before being released to manufacturing. In this regard, Office 2010 graduated from Beta to Release Candidate, which, according to the software giant, will be the first and only RC Build offered ahead of RTM. Members of a select pool of testers have already received the Office 2010 RC bits and have started test driving the release.

There is a reason why Microsoft is not announcing the Release Candidate development milestone of Office 2010 with any fanfare. The Redmond company has planned just limited availability for Office 2010 RC. This means that only a small group of testers close to Microsoft will receive the actual bits, at least through the company’s official channels.

“Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the technology adoption program (TAP). This is one of Microsoft’s planned milestones in the engineering process; however they do not have plans to make this new code set available broadly,” a company spokesperson stated.

With Office 2010 RC not generally available, existing Beta testers are pretty much stuck with Build 14.0.4536.1000. Microsoft released Office 2010 Beta Build 14.0.4536.1000 in mid-November 2009, and the release was downloaded in excess of 2 million times as of the start of January 2010.

At the beginning of January 2010, confirming the fact that Microsoft was closing in to the release to manufacturing deadline, Office 2010 Build 14.0.4730.1007, labeled RTM, was leaked in the wild and made available for download through various illegal third-party sources, including torrent trackers. Subsequently, leaked details were offered on Office 2010 RTM Escrow Build 14.0.4734.1000, but no actual bits.

Microsoft is reportedly looking to RTM Office 2010 in April 2010. The company confirmed officially that customers would be able to purchase Office 2010 in June 2010.

Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 is available for download here.